Sky Fest Fireworks in Dublin for St. Patricks day

It's that time of year again, when we don the green, parade up and down the highways and bye-ways of Ireland and drink copious amounts of the 'black stuff', all in honour of our national patron, Saint Patrick. Ask any guy drunk in a pub on St Paddys day, it's not easy being green.

St. Patrick's Day is filled with colorful traditions and is also celebrated outside of Ireland, mainly in the United States, Canada and Australia. More recent times have also seen rise of celebrations in other parts of the world such as Japan, Singapore and Russia.

St Patricks Day Parade in South Korea

Falling every year on March 17, St. Patrick's Day takes place during the Catholic tradition of Lent and has been celebrated by us Irish for well-over a thousand years - ever since the death of St. Patrick toward the end of the 5th century. Because of the “festive” nature of Irish celebrations, All resolutions made for lent , such as giving up drink or sweets, are waived for the day and participants dance, drink and feast on the traditional Irish meal of corned beef, ham and cabbage.

In New York, in Savannah, Georgia, Chigago, in San Francisco and in a thousand small American towns, everyday life stops for the parade. Work, in this most industrious of cultures, ceases in honour of an Irish saint. Never mind the fact that Saint Patrick was actually Welsh; his parades are celebrations of Irishness. Thus, across America, St. Patrick is celebrated in churches and fire stations, high schools and smoky bars. From early in March, Patrick's Day cards are displayed in supermarkets and petrol (gas) stations. They're often tacky and embarrassing to the us Irish at home who have long since distanced themselves from winking green wearing leprechauns and top-o'-the-mornin' paddywhackery. But in America, people like them. US citizens everywhere notwithstanding mainland European, Afro, Asian or Jewish roots find, or imagine they find, an Irish grandparent, announce it proudly, wear cardboard shamrocks and drink green beer for the day.

Even Dogs dont escape Being Irish on St Patricks Day!

Why, in multicultural America, are we the only nationality allowed to paint the streets tricolour and dye the Hudson green? Is it because all the New York cops are Micks? The city doesn't stop to celebrate Italy's or Poland's patron saints, the Jewish Passover or Chinese New Year. What is it with us Irish? What has won them such acceptance in American life? St Patrick's Day is second only to Christmas or Thanksgiving in the USA. Why are we so popular, one asks? Is it because Irish immigrants hugely influenced the early culture or simply because us Irish throw a good party that everyone enjoys? Mardi Gras happens only in New Orleans: St Pat's day happens everywhere.

In the mid 1600s, the Vatican made March 17 a holy day; the first St Patrick's Day parade was organised by the well-heeled Irish Protestants in Boston in 1737. As emigration, especially during the Famine, gained pace, our Irish ancestors, wherever they found themselves, honoured St Patrick as the patron of their identity.

In 1700’s America, we Irish were liked, although not by the British Americans at first. Irish labour leaders fought for all immigrants' rights and gained respect. Irishmen built the railroads, mined the Rockies, expropriated the political system, commanded and staffed the police and fire services.

In 1829, when the first Irish American was inaugurated as President of the United States, there was a grand party in the white house house Andrew Jackson was the only President in our nation's history whose parents were both immigrants to America. They came from Carrickfergus, a little town near Belfast. And their son grew up to be a great Democrat and a man of the people. (Laughter and applause.) The traditions continues today with the Irish Taoiseach (Irish for Prime Minister) invited to the White house for St. Patricks Day celebrations and to present a bowl of shamrock to the President.

Irish Taoiseach presenting a bowl of Shamorck to President Bush.

America's Irish story (and by implication, the evolution of St Patrick's Day) was set in stone between the fateful years of 1846-54 when an estimated two million people fled famine-plagued Ireland, transforming the Irish into the biggest ethnic group in America. By 1850, 26 per cent of New York residents were Irish - most of them living in slums on the Lower East Side. Despite strenuous attempts by The Irish Emigrant Society to move the diaspora inland, few had any money. They had come for work and many of them never moved far from the docks where they landed. Perhaps, inevitably, the influx and concentration in certain areas caused resentment among a native population who perceived the immigrants as a threat to their livelihoods.

Although the Irish Great Famine has rightly been seen as the seminal event that transformed the East Coast of America into a virtual 33rd county of Ireland, us Irish were already well represented in The New World. As our numbers grew so did the backlash against us.

We Irish responded to the bigotry they encountered in time-honoured fashion. We banded together, got drunk and fought back. The siege mentality so necessary for survival in Ireland itself under English rule was transferred to the Irish ghettoes of New York, Boston and Chicago. The emigrants took refuge in the Catholic Church, The Democratic Party and organisations such as the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH) which was founded in 1836. When New York adopted a full-time police force in 1845, the Irish influence on local politics and the sheer weight of numbers arriving, ensured the recruits were overwhelmingly Irish.

The most organised anti-Irish platform belonged to The American Party - known popularly as 'The Know-Nothing Party'. Although the name would imply ignorance, the title refers to the instructions given to members not to disclose to the authorities their attitudes to the new immigrants. Founded in 1843, the main focus of the group's anti-immigrant stance was inevitably focused on the Irish who were pouring into the country at an unprecedented rate. The scene was set for a confrontation that would shape the future of St Patrick's Day and of the Irish in The New World.

The New York St Patrick's Day parade of 1853 was a watershed in the history of Irish politics in the U.S. It was the first time the AOH marched under its own banners and the organisation has controlled the event ever since. The following year - 1854 - in response to an attack on AOH members by Know Nothings in the July 4 Independence Day parade, AOH ranks were swelled by Irish units of the State militia who gave it protection. The official sanction given to the parade in the form of police, firemen, political and church marchers every year can largely be traced back to the 1854 parade. By the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, the parade had already grown to be the focal point for Irish activities in New York. In the few years after the conflict ended, the popularity of the day had spread to many other major American towns.

St Patricks Day Parade in New York

In the 1940s and '50s, Goldwyn, Mayer and other Jewish film makers iconised the Irish in modern American myth. They were ideal Americans: Grace Kelly, the squeaky-clean, Catholic-American princess, Bing Crosby, Barry Fitzgerald, Spencer Tracey, the priest, Jimmy Cagney in Hell's Kitchen, Maureen O'Sullivan in National Velvet, Mickey Rooney in Boys Town. Irish-Americans were cheerful, feisty, essentially decent, family-oriented examples of American success. They were the prototypes, physically and culturally, for the Kennedys, for Camelot, for the American Dream. (I almost sound like Don King there) American sporting heroes also came of Irish stock Jack Dempsey, Babe Ruth, the Fighting Irish football teams of Notre Dame.


The symbolic importance of St Patrick's Day in garnering the Irish vote was publicly recognised by the White House for the first time in 1948 when Harry S Truman became the first American president to attend the New York parade. John F Kennedy's accession to the Presidency in 1961 was seen by many as the culmination of a defiant Irish political march that began more than a century beforehand.

We Irish have enjoyed success in all walks of American life. The Irish vote is still considered crucial in any election. There are an estimated 40 million people of Irish descent in America and their political cohesion remains nothing short of remarkable despite the generational removal from their ancestral homeland. The ties endure and are strong, despite the strong opposition on the War on Iraq here.

Today we Irish are viewed in a positive light - especially on St Patrick's Day. We have fought and died in other countries' wars, contributed at the highest level to democratic institutions around the world, to America’s judiciary and economic might and not least to its social services such as the fire and police departments.

Saint Patrick

But the question remains, who is Saint Patrick? (you know, that the guy the day and parades are meant to be honouring?!) Although he is the patron saint of Ireland and one of the most famous evangelists in Christian history, St. Patrick's life remains shrouded in mystery. His accomplishments are also surrounded by many unfounded legends, including the famous account of his banishing all the snakes from Ireland, are false, the products of hundreds of years of exaggerated storytelling.

Patrick was born in Wales in the UK to wealthy parents near the end of the fourth century and was christened as Maewyn. Although his father was a Christian deacon in the Catholic church, it has been suggested that he probably took on the role because of tax incentives and there is no evidence that Maewyn came from a particularly religious family and as a result young Maewyn remained detached from religion until later In life. At the age of sixteen, Maewyn was taken prisoner by a group of Irish raiders who were attacking his family's estate. They transported him to Ireland where he spent six years in captivity. During this time, he worked as a shepherd, outdoors and away from people. Lonely and afraid, St Patrick began to search for God, a religious quest that eventually led him to change his name to Patricus (or Patrick - a more Christian sounding name) and it is also believed that Patrick first began to dream of converting the Irish people to Christianity during his captivity.

To do so, Patrick walked nearly 200 miles from County Mayo, where it is believed he was held, to the Irish coast. After escaping to Britain, Patrick reported that he experienced a second revelation—an angel in a dream tells him to return to Ireland as a missionary. Soon after, Patrick began religious training, a course of study that lasted more than fifteen years. After his ordination as a priest, he was sent to Ireland with a dual mission—to minister to Christians already living in Ireland and to begin to convert the Irish people to christianity.

A Celtic Cross (first designed by St. Patrick)

Familiar with our Irish language and culture, Patrick chose to incorporate traditional ritual into his lessons of Christianity instead of attempting to eradicate native Irish beliefs. For instance, he used bonfires to celebrate Easter since the Irish were used to honoring their gods with fire. He also superimposed a sun, a powerful Irish Celtic symbol, onto the Christian cross to create what is now called a Celtic cross, so that adoration of the symbol would seem more natural to the Irish. Although there were a small number of Christians on the island when Patrick arrived, most Irish practiced a nature-based pagan religion. The Irish culture centered around a rich tradition of oral legend and myth. When this is considered, it is no surprise that the story of Patrick's life became exaggerated over the centuries—spinning exciting tales to remember history has always been a part of the Irish way of life.

A traditional icon of the holiday, the shamrock, came about through its use by St. Patrick during some of his sermons. He used the shamrock to represent how the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit could all exist as separate elements of the same entity."

Saint Patrick is believed to have died on March 17, around 460 A.D.Today, as a result of his efforts, the population of the Republic of Ireland is now overwhelmingly Catholic (high 90’s in percentage terms). It’s hard to imagine how one man could influence a country, and by default the entire world, in such a significant way with his efforts, yet here we are in 2005 with the majority of the world celbrating Irishness and his influence on us.

• For a Funny post about Irish/Cork Slang phrases please click here
• Check out my photoblog too!

# posted by Noel Burke @ 12:07 AM